MacTech News

Jul 31

Rogue Amoeba revs Audio Hijack for Mac OS X to version 3.2

Rogue Amoeba (www.rogueamoeba.com) has updated Audio Hijack, the Mac OS X tool for recording and enhancing audio, to version 3.2.

With the utility, audio from individual applications like Safari or Skype, hardware audio devices like microphones and mixers, and even the entire system audio output, can all be saved. In version 3.2, Time Shift Block now features a popover that can be made to float above other windows for easy access from any application. As well, global hotkeys enable access to Time Shift's controls without even using the mouse.

Audio Hijack users will also find two brand new Blocks in version 3.2. First up is the new Sync Block, which adds a precise delay to any audio. While Sync is similar in concept to Time Shift, it works at much smaller scale: up to 1000 ms (one second) per Block. It's designed for syncing an audio stream with video that's lagging behind.

Apple has made available the fifth beta of Mac OS X El Capitan to developers for testing purposes. It's available through the Software Update section of the Mac App Store and through the Apple Developer Center (https://developer.apple.com).

The new beta focuses on bug fixes, not new features. OS X 10.11 El Capitan is currently available to both registered developers and public beta testers. Apple plans to release El Capitan to the public in the fall.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition comes to the Mac

Feral Interactive today announced that the open-world action adventure game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition is out now on Mac and Linux via Steam, and will be released on the Mac App Store by early August.

The game is developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Here's how Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition: "The game begins on the night of Sauron’s return to Mordor, as his Black Captains brutally execute the Rangers of the Black Gate. Players become Talion, a ranger who loses his family and everything he holds dear, only to be returned from death by a mysterious Spirit of vengeance.

"Based on the player’s actions with the in-game Nemesis System, every enemy encountered is distinct and can evolve to become a personal archenemy through the course of the game. As Talion’s personal vendetta unfolds, players uncover the mystery of the Spirit that compels him, discover the origin of the Rings of Power and...

Apple's upcoming "spaceship" campus will have a visitor's center complete with a store and viewing platform, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal (http://tinyurl.com/qd9uz8p).

The company’s 2013 approvals for the massive project included the ability for Apple to build a visitor’s center, but a detailed project description had not been submitted until April. The project will "give visitors of Apple Campus 2 the opportunity to see the Main Building from the rooftop observation deck," Apple wrote in a planning document.

The plans show a glass-walled structure topped by a carbon-fiber roof with extended eaves, punctuated by large skylights. On the ground floor: A 2,386-square-foot cafe and 10,114-square-foot store “which allows visitors to view and purchase the newest Apple products.

Twocanoes Software has announced Boot Runner 2.2, an upgrade of the dual-boot startup manager for Mac. It adds Windows 10 compatibility.

Boot Runner puts you in control of startup of native and virtual operating systems running on Mac computers. Boot Runner 2.2 also offers a customizable system selection screen and remote boot control, ensuring Windows running on the Mac is available to receive critical security updates. The update is free to all current Boot Runner 2 customers.

Boot Runner 2.2 requires Mac OS X 10.8 or higher. It's available at the Twocanoes online store (www.twocanoes.com). Volume and educational pricing is available for any number of Macs. Boot Runner 2.2 lab and site licenses now include the first year of premium support and maintenance for free.

DEVONtechnologies has updates all editions of its Internet search and research tool DEVONagent as well as the context-aware search assistant DEVONsphere Express for compatibility with the upcoming Mac OS X El Capitan.

All editions of DEVONagent 3.9.2 improve the compatibility to OS X El Capitan, DEVONagent Pro also to OS X Yosemite. In addition, DEVONagent Pro 3.9.2 uses the title of PDFs displayed in the build-in web browser and captures non-HTML documents to DEVONthink. New search windows always start with default settings to make search results more predictable.

The Twitter, Thumbnail Gallery, Audio, and Video scanners as well as the Marketing and New Software search sets have been updated. Scanners filter search results by looking for, say, Twitter accounts or image galleries, and return matching objects. Search sets query multiple search engines and web sites in one go.

Apple has made available the third public beta of Mac OS X El Capitan to developers for testing purposes. Those who signed up for Apple’s beta testing program (https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/) and already have the public beta installed can update through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

The new beta focuses on bug fixes, not new features. OS X 10.11 El Capitan is currently available to both registered developers and public beta testers. Apple plans to release El Capitan to the public in the fall.

Paragon Software Group (www.paragon-software.com) has updated Paragon HFS+ for Windows and Paragon ExtFS for Windows for full Windows 10 compatibility.

Paragon HFS+ for Windows (US$19.95), Paragon ExtFS for Windows Free and Paragon ExtFS for Windows Professional ($19.95) allow users to extend the boundaries of Microsoft Windows scalability and interoperability, providing full read and write access to OS X and Linux file systems on Windows and transferring files at a rate higher than native file-system performance.

Paragon HFS+ for Windows 10 provides full read and write access to HFS+/HFSX partitions on any type of disks (APM, GPT, MBR). Once installed, Paragon HFS+ for Windows 10 automatically enables the use of Mac-formatted partitions in Windows systems and applications.

For Mac users who want to kick the tires on Windows 10, which is now available, VMware Fusion 7 (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/) offers a Windows on Mac experience and allows Mac users to run a virtual Windows desktop on their system without rebooting.

Support for Windows 10 is not only available immediately in VMware Fusion 7, the upcoming release of VMware Fusion 8 this summer will be further optimized for Windows 10 and include over 50 new features. If Mac users decide to purchase VMware Fusion 7 (or Fusion 7 Pro), they'll receive a special 10% discount and be eligible for a free upgrade to VMware Fusion 8 (or Fusion 8 Pro) when it arrives later this summer.

SubRosaSoft.com has launched FileSalvage 9. The latest version of the data recovery tool features a performance boost, a new user interface, and support for Mac OS X Yosemite.

FileSalvage 9 is a designed to recover accidentally deleted files or reformatted drives. The new version sports a complete update of the underlying architecture that makes the recovery process faster and easier.

Two canoes (http://twocanoes.com) has introduced an update to Winclone 5 with support for Windows 10.

Winclone 5 is a Boot Camp cloning and migration solution for the Mac. It's designed to help everyone who uses Boot Camp on the Mac to clone Windows for backup or migration to a new Mac. Winclone 5 is available in Basic, Standard and Pro editions. Version 5.1 introduces support for cloning and restoring Windows 10 Boot Camp partitions.

Winclone 5 requires Mac OS X 10.8 or higher. Details on pricing and maintenance options can be found at the Twocanoes website.

Intel (www.intel.com) and Micron Technology (www.micron.com) have unveiled 3D XPoint technology, a non-volatile memory that the companies say has the potential to revolutionize any device, application or service that benefits from fast access to large sets of data.

Now in production, 3D XPoint technology is the first new memory category since the introduction of NAND flash in 1989. Rob Crooke, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, says the explosion of connected devices and digital services is generating massive amounts of new data. To make this data useful, it must be stored and analyzed very quickly, which creates challenges for service providers and system builders who must balance cost, power and performance trade-offs when they design memory and storage solutions.

Zevrix Solutions has announced LinkOptimizer 4.9.46, a feature update to its workflow automation solution for Adobe InDesign.

The utility lets users reduce the size of InDesign links and speed up processing by resizing images to their InDesign dimensions at the target resolution, as well as converting colors and file formats. Version 4.9.46 gives users an option to run Photoshop actions prior to all other processing, which is especially helpful for applying smart filters before image is resized.

LinkOptimizer can be purchased from the Zevrix website (www.zevrix.com) for US$259.95 (there's a "lite" version for $179.95), as well as from authorized resellers and Adobe Exchange. A demo is available for download. The update is free for LinkOptimizer 4.x users and $130 to upgrade from previous versions. LinkOptimizer requires Mac OS X 10.6-10.10 and Adobe InDesign and Photoshop CS3-CC 2015.

Macro 4 (www.macro4.com) has introduced a new mobile printing capability that allows enterprise users to print securely from any mobile device — smartphone, tablet or laptop — to any printer within their organization.

The new mobile printing solution supports both Email to Print and Apple's AirPrint feature and is available as an add-on to Macro 4’s Columbus OM output management software, which is designed to increase the reliability, efficiency and security of business-critical printing.

"The print job sits on a central print server until it’s released," says Neil Evans, development manager at Macro 4. "The user just walks up to a convenient printer on the network, confirms their identify using a smart card, security code or other authentication method and the document prints off. And if their chosen printer has a fault they can...

Chukong Technologies has announced the merger of Cocos2d-JS into Cocos2d-x to form the Cocos 3.7 upgrade. With Cocos 3.7, developers have greater ease of use and less confusion over which product to use as well as the ability to customize their Coscos Framework, according to the folks at Chukong.

In addition, the Cocos SDKBOX is now fully launched and is a platform that provides an integration of third party SDK [software development kit] services with games developed with Cocos2d-x game engine. Cocos SDKBOX is an open platform that supports all major services for mobile game’s production and operation, in the areas of analytics, user acquisition, monetization, advertising, and more.

Cocos2d-x is now the largest open source mobile game engine with 490,000 registered mobile game developers and over 16,000 published titles, according to Kai Zhao, general manager of Chukong Technologies, USA. For more information on Cocos SDKBOX, go to sdkbox.cocos2d-x.org.

Stairways Software (http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/) has released Keyboard Maestro 7.0, an update to its productivity enhancer for Mac OS X. Version 7 refines the editor in a variety of ways, adding autocomplete, inserting actions by name, coloring and renaming actions, integrated access to the wiki help, macro triggering and modification history and more.

Keyboard Maestro 7.0 requires OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 or later. New customers can purchase Keyboard Maestro for US$36. Customers with five or more users should contact Stairways Software for a volume discount quote. Customers who purchased Keyboard Maestro directly from the company after Jan. 1, 2015, have been issued a free upgrade to Keyboard Maestro 7.

Customers who purchased Keyboard Maestro version 6 prior to 2015 can upgrade to Keyboard Maestro 7 for $18 until Oct. 15 and for $25 after that date. Customers who purchased older...

Apple has made available the fifth beta of Mac OS X El Capitan to developers for testing purposes. It's available through the Software Update section of the Mac App Store and through the Apple Developer Center (https://developer.apple.com).

The new beta focuses on bug fixes, not new features. OS X 10.11 El Capitan is currently available to both registered developers and public beta testers. Apple plans to release El Capitan to the public in the fall.

Barcode Basics (http://tinyurl.com/kczaefh), a barcode creator for Mac OS X (10.9 or later), has been revved to version 3.0. It's now available at the Mac App Store for US$8.99 and adds support for nine new barcode types.

Most of the new codes are used in national postal systems. Barcode Basics focusses on professional level features, such as bar width reduction, vector output, truncation, and more. The app includes all the functions needed by graphic designers and art workers to produce industry standard barcodes that will work well on press.

Econ Technologies (www.econtechnologies.com) has updated ChronoSync Express to version 1.0.5. It's the entry-level version of ChronoSync, the complete synchronization and backup utility for Mac OS X.

ChronoSync Express can synchronize or backup to almost anything you can connect to your Mac, including folders on your Mac, other Macs, PC's, and external drives. With ChronoSync Express you can schedule or manually run your syncs or backups, even run trial synchronizations to see what will happen before it happens. ChronoSync Express costs US$29.99 and is available exclusively at the Mac App Store. Version 1.0.5 is a maintenance release that fixes several bugs and offers better compatibility with NAS devices.

The standard version of ChronoSync is $49.99. ChronoSync Express, just like ChronoSync, is fully compatible with ChronoAgent, which gives full access to all files and folders stored on...

Blackmagic Design has announced that the public beta of DaVinci Resolve 12, its professional editing and color correction software, is now available for download from the Blackmagic Design website (www.blackmagicdesign.com).

"The new DaVinci Resolve 12 is the software’s biggest update ever and includes powerful new features, making it both the world’s most powerful editing system as well as the world’s most advanced color grading system," says Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. "The DaVinci Resolve 12 Public Beta will allow customers to start testing and integrating it into their facilities, and will provide us with valuable feedback that will greatly assist us in finishing development so we can launch an extremely reliable and robust product."

With this public beta, the DaVinci Resolve product line has also been renamed to better reflect the models of DaVinci Resolve available. The free...

MacTech Blog

Jul 31

Established entertainment brands are being outshone by...

New data from the June Application Strategies’ Monthly iPhone Entertainment App Tracker (http://bit.ly/1HLdbbk) – covering 150 individual countries – indicates that established entertainment brands are being outshone by less well known applications potentially creating new media powerhouses across the globe.

Of the top 10 most popular free and grossing apps – based on number of appearances globally in June – only Netflix and Vine make the list as established global brands. This is partially due to the confusion about what the entertainment category actually is. The category includes streaming apps – such as Netflix and HBO Now but also content creation apps such as Action FX and personalization apps such as Wallpapers for iOS8.

For entertainment companies – such as HBO, Cinemax and Starz – seeking a global audience the ability to break through the noise of the category could be challenging and may...

Cloud, as one of the substantial transformative forces, is impacting all areas of IT supply, composition, and consumption and provides the basis for many of the big data, mobile, and social solutions. In fact, the IDC (www.idc.com) research group predicts the number of new cloud-based solutions will triple in the next four to five years.

Industry-specific applications will be a driving force as businesses look for solutions that can be easily configured to their unique business and vertical requirements, says IDC. With the huge increase in the number and diversity of services available in the market, organizations across the industries will shift steadily toward cloud-first strategies to enable digital transformation.

The IDC study provides a vertical forecast by 20 industries for the United States and worldwide for 3 public cloud computing technologies — software as a service, platform as a service, and...

There are a variety of ways to secure data, either on the perimeter or within the local area network (LAN), but the most fundamental method in a defense-in-depth model is hardware encryption. ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) expects the global hardware encryption market revenue to reach US$36.4 billion by end of 2015.

The advantage of hardware-based solutions is that they bypass many of the typical drawbacks of software-based solutions like performance degradation or vulnerability to attacks aimed at the encryption key stored in memory. Because encryption is available at drive-level, this solution is not dependent on any software or operating system used, and usually cannot be turned off by users.

Driven by an explosion of smartphones and tablets, the landscape for printing, scanning, and document management is in the midst of profound and significant change.

According to new global research covering six countries across three major regions from International Data Corporation (IDC), the mobile opportunity for document solutions continues to grow as organizations adopt mobile devices at a fevered pace. Large and medium companies are leading the charge, accounting for 54% of smartphone and/or tablet users, notes the research group. Additionally, six vertical markets stand out as having a statistically higher percentage of smartphone and tablet users: Information Technology, Wholesale Trade, Banking, Life Sciences, Resource Industries, and Securities.

"The business value for smartphone/tablet printing is enormously clear, and yet support for this is shockingly lacking in 2015. This is a huge missed productivity opportunity for both businesses and print providers...

Worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to grow 2.5 percent in 2015, to US$66.1 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). This is down from the 4.1% growth predicted in the previous quarter's forecast.

"Since the previous quarter's forecast, continued weakness in the euro and yen have created major weaknesses in the overall equipment market picture," says Bob Johnson, research vice president at Gartner. "With over half of all equipment being produced by either Japanese or European suppliers, the weakness in their currencies has been the primary factor in our reducing our overall outlook for 2015. Longer term, we expect modest growth throughout the semiconductor cycle, with just a pause in the equipment market growth expected in 2016, as DRAM goes through a typical cyclical downturn."

Consumers are motivated to play video games because they relieve boredom, provide a challenge, create a more social atmosphere and help to escape reality. A recent study by Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanaltyics.com) has found that mobile gaming continues to primarily be for quick entertainment in downtime; in an average week, more time is spent playing mobile games outside of the home.

The Media and Services UX (MSX) group at Strategy Analytics investigated mobile gaming behaviors and identified four motivators that are making the mobile gaming experience more compelling. These include daily incentives for accessing and playing the game, game incentives for viewing advertisements, daily timeouts for game play and frequent game updates.

"Daily incentives for accessing and playing a game give users a progressive series of incentives," says Christopher Dodge, report author and...

Operating in the unlicensed 5GHz band, LTE-U’s coexistence with Wi-Fi has become a primary concern for the Wi-Fi industry which anticipates disruption on both the technical and business levels, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

Unlike Wi-Fi, LTE-U, as a propriety solution does not sense the channel activity before transmitting. Instead, it applies a form of time sharing using periodic time slots, according to the research group. Such scheduled transmission of LTE-U not only adds interference and increases collisions for Wi-Fi’s opportunistic transmission, but also defies the concept of fair sharing as it seizes complete control over the channel and Wi-Fi’s transmission window.

LTE-U provides clear advantages for mobile operators. It uses the free unlicensed spectrum to expand network capacity and does so without having to integrate another network, like Wi-Fi, within the cellular core...

High resolution premium video, including 4K and UHD content, is a fast-growing market and therefore content protection services must follow suit with adaptability and preparedness for the expanding space, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

"UHD TV penetration is expected to reach 61% in North America by 2020, which is higher than expected," says Eric Abbruzzese, analyst with the research group. "Along with TVs, browser and application based streaming services will continue to roll out 4K content at a quickening rate, creating an expanding marketplace filled with premium content from studios that demand strong content protection.”

Guidelines for proper 4K content protection rely on deep hardware-level integration of security measures in combination with software security, creating an end-to-end secure system from publishing to consumption. This involves dedicated space on a SoC; Hardware...

According to Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com), mobile gaming apps continue to show strength globally with smaller second quarter (Q2) declines in the US and UK than last year.

However, emerging categories such as Travel and Health & Fitness need to find revenue through alternative business models, says the research group. Mobile gaming continued to experience seasonal Q2 declines but in the U.S. specifically those declines still placed gaming at a higher percentage of top grossing apps than in the year ago quarter.

While the gaming category continues to decline as a percentage of the top free and paid apps its strength is clearly being driven by in-app purchasing of virtual goods – a revenue model that gaming companies have exploited and others have failed to truly benefit from. Strategy Analytics says the following combination of factors will see mobile gaming grow in...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) finds that OTT [over-the-top] video service credential sharing will cost the industry US$500 million in direct revenues worldwide in 2015. The report shows 6% of U.S. broadband households use an OTT video service that is paid by a person living outside of the household.

"Live-streaming usage has garnered media attention recently, but credential sharing is also a popular form of piracy in the connected world, one that has received varying responses from service providers and content owners," says Glenn Hower, research analyst, Parks Associates. "Credential sharing has a measurable impact on video services, particularly in the OTT video service area, where young subscribers are active. The impact on OTT video revenues is especially troublesome as OTT providers are investing large sums of money to boost their original content offerings."

Reviews and Kool Tools

iMobie's MacClean (http://tinyurl.com/ozc2otk) is a free cleaner app made to keep Mac computers running "right and light." It's designed to allow you to free up disk space, enhance your browsing experience, and more.... Read more »

The Uniden Wireless DVR HDD (WDVR) is, apparently, first fully integrated wireless DVR video surveillance system designed specifically for DIY small business and homeowners. It's available for US$499.99 exclusively... Read more »

GNS3 is freely available and open source software that allows users to explore router configurations, design and test their own networks, and study for certification tests, all without spending a dime.
Before... Read more »

News Scanner

Sunday August 2

The team behind the Taig jailbreaking app for iOS 8.4 has finally released the long-awaited Mac version of their software. Previously only a Windows version of the app was available, forcing users on Macs to need to rely on other apps or use Boot Camp to tweak their iOS devices.

Dr. Dre joined Apple as part of the Beats acquisition last year. Dre’s contribution to (aside from branding) is questioned by critics but fans of his work will be pleased to know he announced his first new album in fifteen years, entitled Compton A Soundtrack. The album can be preordered on iTunes now ready for release on August 7th.

Dre announced his long-awaited new release on his Beats 1 radio show yesterday with rapper and former colleague, Ice Cube. The album will be exclusive to Apple, available to buy on iTunes or stream on Apple Music.

Amazon released the Alexa Appkit last month in hopes that developers will create cool new features for the voice technology that powers the Echo. This time, the e-commerce giant is offering the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) itself as a developer previe...

You can already access your Dropbox files on all your PCs and mobile gadgets, but what if you want to put them on your TV? If you have a Roku player, you're set. Roku has launched a Dropbox channel that lets you browse your photos and videos on i...

Saturday August 1

Before virtual reality headsets become mass-market products, iPhone owners can sample the futuristic technology in a cheap and easy way, thanks to Google Cardboard. AppleInsider offers a rundown of the best VR experiences available to download right now on the App Store.

Folks in Japan might find themselves chatting with Pepper robots in business establishments these coming years. The enterprise version of the gentle-looking humanoid machine will be available for pre-order starting on October 1st, 2015, and busines...

After gaining representation by the Teamsters Union, a group of shuttle bus drivers serving Apple and other high technology companies in Silicon Valley on Saturday voted unanimously to adopt a three-year contract promising better pay and working conditions.

After dropping the iPhone from its lineup completely in February, it seems Virgin Mobile USA has had something of a change of heart. Not only is it now offering the latest two iPhone models, it’s also slashed $100 off the full retail price.

You can snag a 16GB iPhone 6 from Virgin Mobile’s online store for $549.99, a hefty discount on the usual full retail price of $649.99. Likewise, the 16GB iPhone 6 Plus is just $649 (down from $749). For those wanting an even cheaper way to get an iPhone, the 8GB white iPhone 5c is...

Dot is a smartwatch that may have life-changing implications. Rather than trying to convey information through tiny text on a small screen, Dot intends to provide visually impaired wearers with notifications through Braille. Four sets of the six dots that signify characters in the Braille system raise and lower as quickly as 100 times per second to denote four characters simultaneously, though users may opt to slow the watch down to a single character per second.

Think home automation can only be used inside your home? Juan Collao explains how watering your lawn is one area you absolutely must automate in a smart, connected way. He has the device to do it with, too: Iro from Rachio.

Pixelmator is one of the best Photoshop alternatives available on the Mac App Store. I’ve been using it for quite some time now, but mostly just using a trackpad or mouse to manipulate layers, access tools and edit functions. There are tons of keyboard shortcuts. And if I had the time or patience to learn them all, I would have. Needless to say, I didn’t. So when I got the chance to check out EditorsKeys keyboard specifically designed for Pixelmator, I jumped at it.

Sure, PlayStation Plus subscribers are used to getting "free" games every month, but they haven't had any say about what the gratis titles would be. Until now. With Vote to Play, you'll have a chance to make your voice heard. PlayStation VP of plat...

Want to see the Apple Watch in person, but the closest Apple Store is too far away? Head on over to your nearest Best Buy. That’s one of the headlines in this week’s news review. You can see all the important headlines here in this slideshow. Want to get more details on a story? Click on the link.

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Surgeons at Boston Children's Hospital started using 3D-printed copies of patients' affected body parts to prepare for procedures last year. Now, that move has helped save the lives of four children aged two months to 16 years old who suffered from...

Friday July 31

It's been months since Tokyo police revealed their belief that the Mt. Gox bitcoin heist was an inside job, and tonight they arrested its former CEO, Mark Karpeles. Some 650,000 bitcoin still remain unaccounted for since the exchange shut down in 2...

So how will the US government respond to a recent spate of attacks by hackers, including one that extracted an unprecedented amount of data on government employees from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)? The LA Times and New York Times sugge...

Rumor Scanner

Sunday August 2

In late July we posted a report titled "Spotify Just Landed the Best Advertising without Paying a Penny." The report was about Jim Dalrymple's real Apple Music experience that he described in a report titled "Apple Music is a nightmare and I'm done with it." This was a far cry from his Apple Music PR piece that he wrote weeks earlier.

While the photos do not confirm that the device will be equipped with Force Touch sensing as has been rumored, they do appear slightly different from the corresponding parts for the iPhone 6.

Meanwhile, M.I.C Gadget shares a few photos of what it says is a prototype version of the iPhone 6s. The device is not shown turned on and the photos themselves do not reveal any differences compared to the iPhone 6, but the source claims the device measures 7.1 mm thick, slightly thicker than the 6.9 mm...

Friday July 31

We're all curious about how many Apple Watches Apple has sold, but with the company opting not to break out its Apple Watch sales numbers, all we have to go on are analyst guesses, information distilled from third-party sources, and tidbits of data that Apple has provided.

The latest data that hints at how the Apple Watch has fared comes from The Wall Street Journal, citing shipment information provided by analyst Mark Li from Taiwan's Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) most recent earnings call. ASE is the company that builds the S1 package housing the many chips and sensors used in the Apple Watch.

An ASE subsidiary reportedly failed to meet its "break-even volume" of two million units shipped per month during the second quarter and does not...

A year after teaming up with Apple on an enterprise partnership to push iOS devices and apps for business users, IBM is moving forward with plans to rapidly move its own employees onto Apple's platforms, MacRumors has learned.

While IBM announced in an internal memo several months ago that it was planning to purchase up to 50,000 MacBooks for employees by the end of 2015, chief information officer Jeff Smith has revealed in a new internal video released to employees yesterday that he believes IBM could actually end up purchasing 150,000-200,000 Macs annually.

In the video, Smith relates a conversation he had with Apple's chief information officer Niall O'Connor about the possibility of a massive Mac deployment for IBM."I'd like to be able to offer these to everyone that can use it. We've got to find a way to make the overall cost the same or lower than PCs to make that happen...

Earlier this month, rumors suggested Apple had been in talks with BMW about potentially using the body of the electric BMW i3 as the basis for its Apple Car, but those talks did not progress into a deal. Reuters has now spoken with some inside sources at BMW, giving us more insight into what the two companies discussed and where their relationship might lead in the future.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and other senior executives visited the BMW factory in Leipzig, Germany in 2014 to look into how the i3 is manufactured. According to Reuters' source, Apple left the talks without reaching a deal with BMW because the company wants "to explore developing a passenger car on its own."

Elgato, with its Eve line of smart home products is one of the first companies to come out with home accessories that integrate with Apple's HomeKit home automation platform, and it's the very first company to produce a Bluetooth-enabled HomeKit product.

The Eve system, which consists of a weather station, an indoor room monitor, a door/window sensor, and a smart outlet, is one of five HomeKit-compatible products that became available for purchase in June. With the Eve components just now shipping out to customers, Elgato invited us to review the lineup to get a feel for what's possible with Apple's system.

HomeKit and Eve's accessory lineup promise to make our homes smarter and our lives easier, but in its current incarnation, HomeKit is a service that feels unfinished. It's limited in scope and even though I found many of the Eve...

Windows 10 was released on Wednesday and in the first 24 hours they've had 14 million downloads. The number is likely to jump over the weekend as Windows fans have more time to explore the new OS and welcome back the long lost Start Menu.

As the launch of the so-called "iPhone 6s" and "iPhone 6s Plus" inches closer, suppliers have begun shipping Force Touch panels for the next-generation smartphones, according to DigiTimes. The report claims that Apple's supply chain partners started shipping Force Touch panels in limited quantities in June before ramping up production of the pressure-sensitive modules in July.

Taipei Times vaguely reported that Apple's touch panel supplier TPK expects widespread adoption of pressure sensors, presumably for Force Touch, later this year. Force Touch, an existing Apple Watch and MacBook feature, is a pressure-sensitive technology that will enable future iPhones to distinguish between a light tap and deep press and complete different actions accordingly.

At the beginning of the month we reported that the iPhone supply chain had started delivering parts and components to the two iPhone OEMs Foxconn Electronics and Pegatron for production of next generation iPhone devices. Today it's specifically being revealed that touch panel suppliers are ...

According to a new report, the 2016 Honda Accord will be the first mass-market car to come equipped with Apple CarPlay. The Honda Accord has long been a preferred sedan for sensible suburbanites and now it will roll out with Apple's cool CarPlay next month.

Thursday July 30

According to a new report published late this afternoon, Unions continue to make inroads into Silicon Valley. Shuttle drivers for Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga and several other Silicon Valley firms are set to vote Saturday on a package for improved wages ...

A little under 10 months ago Apple's one-time Sapphire supplier GTAT shockingly filed for bankruptcy. Countless problems in the manufacturing process failed to produce the sapphire that Apple wanted to use for the iPhone 6's cover glass. Today the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a very sophisticated method to manufacture sapphire parts...

Apple today seeded the second beta of OS X 10.10.5 to developers, two weeks after seeding the first 10.10.5 beta and one month after releasing OS X 10.10.4 to the public. Because we're just a couple of months away from the public release of OS X 10.11 El Capitan, it's possible that OS X 10.10.5 may be one of the last updates to Yosemite.

Today's beta, build 14F19a, is available as an over-the-air update and can also be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center.

The first OS X 10.10.5 beta did not appear to include any consumer-facing changes, so it's likely that this update focuses on behind-the-scenes bug fixes and performance enhancements.

Over the course of its lifespan, OS X Yosemite has received four updates. The first two brought bug...

Sources familiar with Apple’s plans for the next generation of Apple TV tell BuzzFeed News that Apple intends to announce its next-generation device in September, at the same event at which it typically unveils its new iPhones.

Apple is planning to introduce its long-awaited next-generation Apple TV in September, reports Buzzfeed's John Paczkowski. According to sources familiar with Apple's plans, the new set-top box will be unveiled in September at the same event where Apple will unveil the next-generation iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

As has been previously rumored, it is said to include an A8 processor, a touch-pad based remote that's "drastically improved" compared to the current version, a new operating system that supports a full App Store, developer APIs, and Siri voice control, and more on-board storage to accommodate apps. Physically, the Apple TV will take on a new, slimmer look.

According to a new report this afternoon, Google is quietly distributing a new version of its Glass wearable computer aimed at businesses in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing and energy, according to people familiar with the situation. Google is pitching the new version exclusively to businesses. A new consumer version is at least a year away, the people familiar with...

Apple today seeded the second beta of iOS 8.4.1 to registered developers for testing purposes, just over two weeks after releasing the first iOS 8.4.1 beta and a month after launching iOS 8.4 with the new Apple Music service.

Today's beta, build 12H318, is available via an over the air update and it can also be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center.

No outward facing changes were discovered in the first iOS 8.4.1 beta, and it's a .1 update, so it's likely that it includes only minor bug fixes, security enhancements, and performance improvements designed to prepare the update for its upcoming retirement.

iOS 8.4.1 may be one of the last updates to iOS 8 as Apple is working on its successor, iOS 9. iOS 9 builds on many of the features introduced with iOS 8 and adds...

Documentation Scanner

Sunday August 2

You can query whether a process is running by name. You can do this with ps and pipe the output to grep. It’s not hard, but you can do this more quickly with pgrep. You can also kill that process with pkill. Which includes the ability to send a signal.

Saturday August 1

Between June and July 2015, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) received reports of multiple, ongoing and likely evolving, email-based phishing campaigns targeting U.S. Government agencies and private sector organizations. This alert provides general and phishing-specific mitigation strategies and countermeasures.

Description

US-CERT is aware of three phishing campaigns targeting U.S. Government agencies and private organizations across multiple sectors. All three campaigns leveraged website links contained in emails; two sites exploited a recent Adobe Flash vulnerability (CVE-2015-5119) while the third involved the download of a compressed (i.e., ZIP) file containing a malicious executable file. Most of the...

You can disable an Active Directory account using the Disable-ADAccount PowerShell commandlet. To do so, use the -Identity option along with the SAMAccountName of the account to disable. Here, we’ll use the SAMAccountName of CharlesEdge:

Disable-ADAccount -Identity CharlesEdge

The account can then be re-enabled using the Enable-ADAccount commandlet using the same command structure:

Friday July 31

Conferences for Apple Systems Administrators have been popping up all over the place. There are the ones that have been around forever, like MacIT and then there are new conferences that sprung up in the past year, such as ACES and MacDevOps. Some have reached maturity, such as MacTech and Penn State Mac Admins. Now, we have conferences in North America, Europe and Australia (so only 4 continents to go). So, I made a page listing them. And a Pinterest board. The page is available here. And that Pinterest board:

Safari has a bookmarks bar. Some people want to hide it. A lot of people used to do stuff like this by modifying the default user template in OS X. Not something we’ll be doing much in the future. So to do so with a script:

Wednesday July 29

Today’s post was written by Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office Client Applications and Services team.

It’s a big day for Microsoft and we are excited to be part of it! Today, we’re pleased to announce the availability of the Office Mobile apps on Windows 10—bringing us one step closer to our vision of reinventing productivity. Customers can immediately download and install the apps from the new Windows Store in 190 countries.

The Office Mobile apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—are built from the ground up for touch, offer the familiar experience that Office customers expect, and deliver the capabilities people need for on-the-go productivity on Windows 10 tablets and small screen devices. Across each of the apps, customers will appreciate full fidelity viewing of their Office...

What capabilities in Windows 10 will benefit Office 365 admins? During the Microsoft Ignite conference in May, we invited Michael Niehaus—veteran Windows deployment and management expert—to present updates for managing Windows 10. Many of these updates accrue to and leverage the work people are doing to implement Office 365 and broader Microsoft Cloud services.

In this week’s Office Mechanics, we describe three areas where IT admins can benefit from Windows, Office and Azure Active Directory integration:

Joining Windows 10 to Azure Active Directory for single sign-on (SSO) to Office 365 and other services.

Using the Business Store portal in Windows Store to deliver Office apps.

Adding Windows 10 devices to Mobile Device Management for Office 365.

Joining Azure Active Directory

Most organizations using Office 365 with an on-premises Active Directory (AD) will synchronize their directory with Azure AD. We’ve covered the...

Tuesday July 28

As a healthcare organization, we have a great responsibility to protect the personal data of our patients. This concern for patient privacy has often meant that we take a measured approach to technology adoption. We want to deliver the latest capabilities to our users so they can work however they want to, whether that means with increased mobility or easier collaboration, but we can never sacrifice security to get there.

Finding a comfort level

Because Microsoft understands our need for HIPAA compliance, we were able to help our management team feel at ease with moving to cloud-based tools. Microsoft provided us with a business associate agreement (BAA), which is needed for HIPAA compliance and also delivers security and compliance...

Today’s post was written by Alexis Parker, special education teacher at a K–5 school in Florida.

I am a special education teacher for kindergarten through 5th-grade students who are highly impacted with autism. While every person with autism has a variety of talents and challenges, many of the students in my classroom face similar challenges—specifically in the areas of behavior, communication and fine motor skills. Six of my students exhibit behavioral challenges when presented with tasks they don’t want to do. Seven are either non-verbal or have limited verbal skills. A few of my students are beginning to use alternative communication devices. Two of my students are able to reproduce letters of the alphabet, two can copy letters given an example, and three can trace letters.

Behavior, communication and fine motor deficits make it extremely difficult to evaluate what information a student has gained. In a typical classroom, you can assess a student’s...

You can easily accept user provided input in bash by using the read command in bash for Linux and OS X. Here, we’ll echo out a choice to a user in a script, read the output into a variable called yn and then echo out the response:

echo "Please enter y or n: "
read yn
echo "You chose wrong: $yn"

Here, we used echo to simply write out what was chosen in the input. But we could also take this a little further and leverage a case statement to then run an action based on the choice selected:

I mess computers up a lot. And that means I have to reload operating systems a lot. I’ve also been having terrible issues caused by autocorrect. So… Let’s disable it. By sending the NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled key as a false boolean into NSGlobalDomain:

Sunday July 26

Sometimes when I’m writing a script, I need something to phone home to something in the script. For example, this can tell another daemon where to ssh into when I invoke it remotely. So, let’s say I want to grab my WAN address in a script. I can use curl with a number of 3rd party sites (sites that often change. But, one that we can use here is ipecho.net. Here, we’ll look at their plain output page here:

curl ipecho.net/plain

This can then get output into a variable or file for processing in other parts of a script. For example, the output here is basically the same thing but the command is in backticks, as you might put it in when scripting:

Saturday July 25

There’s an excellent tool that can be used to grab a heap dump from a Java process. It’s called jmap. To do so, run the jmap command, followed by a format and a file path as the format and file operators. Also, provide the PID, as follows:

jmap -dump:format=b,file=~/memdump.hprof 80446

Once dumped, you can view the dump file in the Memory Analyzer Tool (MAP) and find objects that use use too much memory and/or have memory leaks, as part of your troubleshooting. You can also replace the pid with a name of an executable or a core. Run the map tool along with a -h option for a help summary.

A sister tool is jps, which can be used to just list running processes by pid and then path. To run, assuming the same pid as earlier:

jps 80446

You can also run a java debugger daemon using jsadebugd, which attaches a process as a debug server. Then stack, map and info can attach via RMI. Finally, not everyone has access to every path on a file system. So jinfo...

Friday July 24

We had a great time at Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) last week, where more than 14,000 people gathered to celebrate our Partners’ vital work and to share information that will help them continue to serve our customers and grow their businesses. Office 365 was a huge part of WPC, and we gave our Partners a first look at some innovations we are unleashing to help organizations transform how they work. We also announced a significant expansion of the Cloud Solution Provider program to include Azure and CRM Online as well as Office 365, and we are making the program available to all eligible Partners in 131 countries.

Mobile and cloud technology were big topics at WPC, which is unsurprising when you consider how much they...

The caffeinate command is pretty cool. It keeps your computer from going to sleep. It can run in a couple of different ways. There’s a timer that prevents sleep for a little while. You can also run another command from within caffeinate that keeps the system awake until the other command is finished. Here, we’ll scp a file called source file to a host called servername and keep the system from going to sleep until the process is finished:

caffeinate -s scp sourcefile me:servername/targetfile

Here, we’ll just use the boring command to tell the computer not to go to sleep for an hour:

Thursday July 23

Every year, Microsoft welcomes some of the world’s most innovative educators and students from around the world at its annual E2 Summit to share best practices on how to use technology to enhance student learning. At this year’s summit, the Office Mix team got to meet Kelli Etheredge, director of Teaching and Learning Resources at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile, Alabama. Kelli shared the story of how St. Paul’s students used Office Mix to teach each other about human body systems in their 4th–grade science class.

The next thing she knew, the Office Mix team was interviewing the students and their teachers over Skype for Business to hear firsthand how they learned about Office Mix, how they created mixes for the first time, and more importantly, how it impacted—and improved—the students’ desire to...

Documentation Scanner

Sunday August 2

You can query whether a process is running by name. You can do this with ps and pipe the output to grep. It’s not hard, but you can do this more quickly with pgrep. You can also kill that process with pkill. Which includes the ability to send a signal.

Saturday August 1

Between June and July 2015, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) received reports of multiple, ongoing and likely evolving, email-based phishing campaigns targeting U.S. Government agencies and private sector organizations. This alert provides general and phishing-specific mitigation strategies and countermeasures.

Description

US-CERT is aware of three phishing campaigns targeting U.S. Government agencies and private organizations across multiple sectors. All three campaigns leveraged website links contained in emails; two sites exploited a recent Adobe Flash vulnerability (CVE-2015-5119) while the third involved the download of a compressed (i.e., ZIP) file containing a malicious executable file. Most of the...

You can disable an Active Directory account using the Disable-ADAccount PowerShell commandlet. To do so, use the -Identity option along with the SAMAccountName of the account to disable. Here, we’ll use the SAMAccountName of CharlesEdge:

Disable-ADAccount -Identity CharlesEdge

The account can then be re-enabled using the Enable-ADAccount commandlet using the same command structure:

Friday July 31

Conferences for Apple Systems Administrators have been popping up all over the place. There are the ones that have been around forever, like MacIT and then there are new conferences that sprung up in the past year, such as ACES and MacDevOps. Some have reached maturity, such as MacTech and Penn State Mac Admins. Now, we have conferences in North America, Europe and Australia (so only 4 continents to go). So, I made a page listing them. And a Pinterest board. The page is available here. And that Pinterest board:

Safari has a bookmarks bar. Some people want to hide it. A lot of people used to do stuff like this by modifying the default user template in OS X. Not something we’ll be doing much in the future. So to do so with a script:

Wednesday July 29

Today’s post was written by Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office Client Applications and Services team.

It’s a big day for Microsoft and we are excited to be part of it! Today, we’re pleased to announce the availability of the Office Mobile apps on Windows 10—bringing us one step closer to our vision of reinventing productivity. Customers can immediately download and install the apps from the new Windows Store in 190 countries.

The Office Mobile apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—are built from the ground up for touch, offer the familiar experience that Office customers expect, and deliver the capabilities people need for on-the-go productivity on Windows 10 tablets and small screen devices. Across each of the apps, customers will appreciate full fidelity viewing of their Office...

What capabilities in Windows 10 will benefit Office 365 admins? During the Microsoft Ignite conference in May, we invited Michael Niehaus—veteran Windows deployment and management expert—to present updates for managing Windows 10. Many of these updates accrue to and leverage the work people are doing to implement Office 365 and broader Microsoft Cloud services.

In this week’s Office Mechanics, we describe three areas where IT admins can benefit from Windows, Office and Azure Active Directory integration:

Joining Windows 10 to Azure Active Directory for single sign-on (SSO) to Office 365 and other services.

Using the Business Store portal in Windows Store to deliver Office apps.

Adding Windows 10 devices to Mobile Device Management for Office 365.

Joining Azure Active Directory

Most organizations using Office 365 with an on-premises Active Directory (AD) will synchronize their directory with Azure AD. We’ve covered the...

Tuesday July 28

As a healthcare organization, we have a great responsibility to protect the personal data of our patients. This concern for patient privacy has often meant that we take a measured approach to technology adoption. We want to deliver the latest capabilities to our users so they can work however they want to, whether that means with increased mobility or easier collaboration, but we can never sacrifice security to get there.

Finding a comfort level

Because Microsoft understands our need for HIPAA compliance, we were able to help our management team feel at ease with moving to cloud-based tools. Microsoft provided us with a business associate agreement (BAA), which is needed for HIPAA compliance and also delivers security and compliance...

Today’s post was written by Alexis Parker, special education teacher at a K–5 school in Florida.

I am a special education teacher for kindergarten through 5th-grade students who are highly impacted with autism. While every person with autism has a variety of talents and challenges, many of the students in my classroom face similar challenges—specifically in the areas of behavior, communication and fine motor skills. Six of my students exhibit behavioral challenges when presented with tasks they don’t want to do. Seven are either non-verbal or have limited verbal skills. A few of my students are beginning to use alternative communication devices. Two of my students are able to reproduce letters of the alphabet, two can copy letters given an example, and three can trace letters.

Behavior, communication and fine motor deficits make it extremely difficult to evaluate what information a student has gained. In a typical classroom, you can assess a student’s...

You can easily accept user provided input in bash by using the read command in bash for Linux and OS X. Here, we’ll echo out a choice to a user in a script, read the output into a variable called yn and then echo out the response:

echo "Please enter y or n: "
read yn
echo "You chose wrong: $yn"

Here, we used echo to simply write out what was chosen in the input. But we could also take this a little further and leverage a case statement to then run an action based on the choice selected:

I mess computers up a lot. And that means I have to reload operating systems a lot. I’ve also been having terrible issues caused by autocorrect. So… Let’s disable it. By sending the NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled key as a false boolean into NSGlobalDomain:

Sunday July 26

Sometimes when I’m writing a script, I need something to phone home to something in the script. For example, this can tell another daemon where to ssh into when I invoke it remotely. So, let’s say I want to grab my WAN address in a script. I can use curl with a number of 3rd party sites (sites that often change. But, one that we can use here is ipecho.net. Here, we’ll look at their plain output page here:

curl ipecho.net/plain

This can then get output into a variable or file for processing in other parts of a script. For example, the output here is basically the same thing but the command is in backticks, as you might put it in when scripting:

Saturday July 25

There’s an excellent tool that can be used to grab a heap dump from a Java process. It’s called jmap. To do so, run the jmap command, followed by a format and a file path as the format and file operators. Also, provide the PID, as follows:

jmap -dump:format=b,file=~/memdump.hprof 80446

Once dumped, you can view the dump file in the Memory Analyzer Tool (MAP) and find objects that use use too much memory and/or have memory leaks, as part of your troubleshooting. You can also replace the pid with a name of an executable or a core. Run the map tool along with a -h option for a help summary.

A sister tool is jps, which can be used to just list running processes by pid and then path. To run, assuming the same pid as earlier:

jps 80446

You can also run a java debugger daemon using jsadebugd, which attaches a process as a debug server. Then stack, map and info can attach via RMI. Finally, not everyone has access to every path on a file system. So jinfo...

Friday July 24

We had a great time at Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) last week, where more than 14,000 people gathered to celebrate our Partners’ vital work and to share information that will help them continue to serve our customers and grow their businesses. Office 365 was a huge part of WPC, and we gave our Partners a first look at some innovations we are unleashing to help organizations transform how they work. We also announced a significant expansion of the Cloud Solution Provider program to include Azure and CRM Online as well as Office 365, and we are making the program available to all eligible Partners in 131 countries.

Mobile and cloud technology were big topics at WPC, which is unsurprising when you consider how much they...

The caffeinate command is pretty cool. It keeps your computer from going to sleep. It can run in a couple of different ways. There’s a timer that prevents sleep for a little while. You can also run another command from within caffeinate that keeps the system awake until the other command is finished. Here, we’ll scp a file called source file to a host called servername and keep the system from going to sleep until the process is finished:

caffeinate -s scp sourcefile me:servername/targetfile

Here, we’ll just use the boring command to tell the computer not to go to sleep for an hour:

Thursday July 23

Every year, Microsoft welcomes some of the world’s most innovative educators and students from around the world at its annual E2 Summit to share best practices on how to use technology to enhance student learning. At this year’s summit, the Office Mix team got to meet Kelli Etheredge, director of Teaching and Learning Resources at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile, Alabama. Kelli shared the story of how St. Paul’s students used Office Mix to teach each other about human body systems in their 4th–grade science class.

The next thing she knew, the Office Mix team was interviewing the students and their teachers over Skype for Business to hear firsthand how they learned about Office Mix, how they created mixes for the first time, and more importantly, how it impacted—and improved—the students’ desire to...

Technology Showcase

Sep 17

Video showcases iOS app built with Xojo

Xojo Inc., the company formerly known as Real Software, has posted a video of an iOS app that was built with Xojo. Xojo is an object-oriented, cross-platform software development tool that enables developers to create software for OS X, Windows, Linux, the web and mobile.

The video showcases all the native controls and gives an overview of Xojo's support for building iOS apps. Building native iOS apps with Xojo is the same as building a web or desktop app as you do today. You can view the video at http://tinyurl.com/nvexpk7 .

Developers can use the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) of Xojo for free, and will only need to purchase a license once they want to build a distributable version of their application. Licenses are purchased per target platform, including Web, Desktop, Database, Console, and Xojo Pro, which is a bundle license that includes all deployment licenses plus an added...

This Friday, Feb. 15, a 180,000-ton asteroid with the thrilling name of "2012 DA14" will fly past the Earth. Don't worry, we're not talking a "Deep Impact" scenario. Which is good, right? And you can follow the asteroid using Apple devices.

The 50-meter space rock will come within 17,200 miles of earth -- that's closer than our orbiting geosynchronous communication satellites. Although we don't have to worry about a collision, the passage of 2012 DA14 is a record close approach to the Earth for an object of this size.

Southern Stars has released update to its SkySafari Plus and Pro apps for iOS, Mac OS X, and Android to let you track 2012 DA14. If you want to track the asteroid you'll want the updated apps. Why? Because the Earth's gravity affects the asteroid's orbit so severely, most desktop planetarium programs -- and all other mobile apps -- will completely fail to predict the asteroid's position correctly, says Southern Stars founder Tim DeBenedictis.

Apple's Fusion Drive Apple is available as a build-to-order option for the 21.5-inch, 2.7GHz 21.5-inch iMac model. Previously, it was only offered for the high-end 21.5-inchers and the 27-inch iMac.

Apple says the Fusion Drive gives customers the performance of flash storage and the capacity of a hard drive. It combines 128GB of flash with a standard 1TB or 3TB hard drive to create a single storage volume that intelligently manages files to optimize read and write performance. Apple says the Fusion Drive adapts to the way you use your iMac and automatically moves the files and apps you use most often to flash storage to enable faster performance and quicker access.

Satechi (http://www.Satechi.net) has released the Divoom iBase Dock Station for the iPod, iPhone or iPad. The US$44.99 device combines a speaker system and docking station.

The Satechi Divoom iBase Dock Station features four full range neodymium dynamic drivers and a 20.6 ounce speaker. Additionally, it has a vertical support to ensure the iOS device is secured in place. The Satechi Divoom iBase Dock Station is also compatible with other MP3 players via the 3.5mm line-in jack.

Appcelerator has published a white paper on "4 Steps to creating a mobile development strategy."

"Companies now have a window of opportunity to think about how mobile can transform their business as radically as the web did," says AppCelerator. "By making mobile a part of their overall digital strategy, companies can transform their relationships with their customers in even greater ways than they did with the web."

The white paper tells you how this can be accomplished. Appcelerator (http://www.appcelerator.com/) is a company that helps web developers create mobile, tablet and desktop applications.

InterMapper is Mac OS X compatible network monitoring software. It uses SNMP to monitor the network infrastructure, and has probes for monitoring many kinds of servers, including web, mail, LDAP, FTP, etc. More information and a free 30-day demo are available at the product Web site (...

In June of 2010, the Data Rescue Center and Prosoft Engineering finalized the purchase of a building in Livermore near the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Work immediately began on the design and construction of the new recovery lab facility.

In late January of 2011, both The Data Rescue Center and Prosoft Engineering moved all operations to this new facility. It boasts a Class 2 UL-Listed Vault and extensive security features.

Zco Corp. (http://www.zco.com) has posted an overview video for their technology showcase. You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzE89z-jexA .

Zco can help you build custom software, as well as market it. The company developsb oth industrial strength backend applications using .NET, PHP and Java as well as apps for all major mobile platforms, including the iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone 7, WebOS and Symbian.

A new online video (http://www.memoryminer.com) shows some of the best ways for using MemoryMiner, a digital storytelling application for Mac OS X. Designed an an complement the iLife suite, the software is all about capturing and exploring your life memories.

MemoryMiner allows anyone to zero in on the stories depicted in their photos by linking them to each other based on people, places and time. While photos are used as the starting point, the goal is always uncovering the backstory.

With MemoryMiner, you can directly record audio or video to capture the backstory of a photo. You can attach documents, web URL's, or other media to add depth and context. Each photo becomes a frame in a storyboard that can be browsed by periods in a person's life, where people overlap, by place, by time, or any combination.

Software Updates via MacUpdate

Kodi 15.1.rc1 - Powerful media center to...

Kodi (was XBMC) is an award-winning free and open-source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub that can be installed on Linux, OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android, featuring a 10-foot user... Read more

Bookends 12.5.8 - Reference management a...

Bookends is a full-featured bibliography/reference and information-management system for students and professionals.
Access the power of Bookends directly from Mellel, Nisus Writer Pro, or MS Word (... Read more

Chromium 44.0.2403.125 - Fast and stable...

Chromium is an open-source browser project that aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all Internet users to experience the web.
Version 44.0.2403.125:
This release contains a number... Read more

iMazing 1.2.2 - Complete iOS device mana...

iMazing (was DiskAid) is the ultimate iOS device manager with capabilities far beyond what iTunes offers. With iMazing and your iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod), you can:
Copy music to and from... Read more

Audio Hijack 3.2.0 - Record and enhance...

Audio Hijack (was Audio Hijack Pro) drastically changes the way you use audio on your computer, giving you the freedom to listen to audio when you want and how you want. Record and enhance any audio... Read more

FontExplorer X Pro 5.0.1 - Font manageme...

FontExplorer X Pro is optimized for professional use; it's the solution that gives you the power you need to manage all your fonts.
Now you can more easily manage, activate and organize your... Read more

Calcbot 1.0.2 - Intelligent calculator a...

Calcbot is an intelligent calculator and unit converter for the rest of us. Featuring an easy-to-read history tape, expression view, intuitive conversion, and much more!
Features
History Tape -... Read more

MTR 5.0.0.1 - The Mac's oldest and...

MTR (was MacTheRipper)--the Mac's oldest and smartest DVD-backup app--is now updated to version 5.001
MTR -- the complete toolbox, not a one-trick, point-and-click extractor. MTR is intended for... Read more

LibreOffice 4.4.5.2 - Free, open-source...

LibreOffice is an office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, drawing tool) compatible with other major office suites. The Document Foundation is coordinating development and... Read more

Adobe Lightroom 6.1.1 - Import, develop,...

Adobe Lightroom is available as part of Adobe Creative Cloud for as little as $9.99/month bundled with Photoshop CC as part of the photography package. Lightroom 6 is also available for purchase as a... Read more

Bandai Namco has released Pac-Man Championship Edition DX on iOS and Android, which features the classic arcade gameplay that we've all grown to love.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX can be enjoyed in much shorter bursts than the arcade versions... | Read more »

Angel Stone is Fincon's follow up to the massively successful Hello Hero and is out now on iOS and Android.
You play as a member of The Resistance, a group of mighty human warriors who have risen up in defiance of the Demon horde threatening to... | Read more »

The not exactly rumors were true and the birds are back. Angry Birds 2 has come to the App Store and the world will... well I suppose it'll still be the same, but now we have more bird-flinging options!
[Read more]
| Read more »

You Could Design Your Own Card for Chain...

If you've ever wanted to create your own item, weapon, trap, or even monster for Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night, this is your chance. Auroch Digital is currently holding a contest so that fans can fight to the death (not really) to see which... | Read more »

Bitcoin Billionaire is Going Back in Tim...

If you thought you managed to buy everything there is to buy in Bitcoin Billionaire and make all the money, well you though wrong. Those of you who made it far enough might remember investing in time travel - and it looks like that investment is... | Read more »

Domino Drop (Games)

Domino Drop 1.0
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Games
Price: $1.99, Version: 1.0 (iTunes)
Description:
Domino Drop is a delightful new puzzle game with dominos and gravity!Learn how to play it in a minute, master it day by day.Your... | Read more »

Best Buy has iPad Air 2s on sale for up to $100 off MSRP on their online store for a limited time. Choose free shipping or free local store pickup (if available). Sale prices available for online... Read more

B&H Photo has the 13″ 1.6GHz/128GB MacBook Air on sale for $899.99 including free shipping plus NY tax only. Their price is $100 off MSRP, and it’s the lowest price available for this model.... Read more

Worldwide Tablet Market Decline Continues, Ap...

The worldwide tablet market declined -7.0% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2015 (2Q15) with shipments totaling 44.7 million units according to preliminary data from the International Data... Read more

The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished iPad Air 2s available for up to $140 off the price of new models. Apple’s one-year warranty is included with each model, and shipping is free:
- 128GB... Read more

Updated Apple iPad Price Trackers

We’ve updated our iPad Air Price Tracker and our iPad mini Price Tracker with the latest information on prices and availability from Apple and other resellers.
Read more

Apple refurbished 2014 13-inch 128GB MacBook...

The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished 2014 13″ MacBook Airs available starting at $759. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each MacBook, and shipping is free:
- 13″ 1.4GHz/128GB... Read more

Apple’s Education discount saves up to $300 o...

Purchase a new Mac or iPad at The Apple Store for Education and take up to $300 off MSRP. All teachers, students, and staff of any educational institution qualify for the discount. Shipping is free,... Read more

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